Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Andy,
Wasn't that the year that the pipe broke? We all thought it was a weld and I remember talking to Joe on the way back from the field after the break. There was no way for them to make the repair as the pipe had a compound fracture. About 6 inches long and around the entire pipe as I remember. Maybe Dr. Joe is watching.
It was one very sweet machine! Ours was my favorite of all time and it is still in the awards case at the school.
We were in the #8 alliance in EMU according to our history page.
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I could literally feel my face flush red as I read this post.
That robot came out
so well. It was nearly a fiasco because we made a major design error in the gearing of the main arm drive but Mike Ciavaglia (who was "King of the Machine" that year) redesigned things at the 11th hour and implemented it just in the nick of time.
We also had a drive team that was just amazing that year. He was easily the best swerve driver we ever had. Most Swerve Drivers still think in X-Y motions even though they have the whole plane to work with. Our driver that year would think it, and the robot glided into place.
And, then at Disney, we ran pretty well in qualifications, we had a great partner (a team out of Florida -- HeatWave I think). And... ...we broke in the first match that mattered.
My brain just could register what had happened at first. Our massive ball handling mechanism just fell into the high trough as we were scoring balls.
In retrospect, we were able to determine that this was a design flaw baked into the robot from the start. A weld joint that was different from every other weld on the robot. It looked okay at first glance but when you think about it with benefit of hindsight, it was probably braking the first day we started practicing. 3 Regionals, 1 set of qualifying matches and 1 game later, it broke in a very catastrophic manner.
When the Grey Beards from the early days of Chief Delphi get together we invariably talk about that season as The One that got away from us.
But... ...life is long, and being a Cubs Fan from the crib, I say to myself, "there is always next year!"
And there is...
Cheers,
Joe J.